


something's made your eyes look less like the sunrise and more like despair

by tomlinsoul



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bottom!Harry, Fluff, Happy Ending, Louis Tomlinson Calls Harry Styles Pet Names, M/M, Neighbor au, Neighbour AU, Panic Attack, There's A Tag For That, but it's only referenced because i cant write smut, harry is louis' baby, insecure!harry, louis braids harry's hair, photographer!harry, preschool teacher!louis, sad!harry, slight tw i guess, smidgen of angst i guess, there are big time skips oops, this is self indulgent oops, top!Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:50:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5365454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomlinsoul/pseuds/tomlinsoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day turned into a month, and I haven't seen you smile in forever.</p><p> </p><p>or; Harry and his boyfriend keep their neighbour Louis up every night, and Louis hates him for it, but one day it all stopped and Harry is sad and Louis is in love with him. Who knew that a break down could be the start of something so beautiful?</p>
            </blockquote>





	something's made your eyes look less like the sunrise and more like despair

**Author's Note:**

> ok so i clearly wrote this when i had a slight language issue omg. i don't want to go back and edit all the swear words out because it's a part of me from that time (that was an excuse, honestly i just cba) but don't read it if you find excessive swearing offensive.
> 
> also slight tw for anxiety

Louis hates Harry.

He's not even over-exaggerating, because it's one am and he's been trying to sleep since ten-thirty, but the couple next door just have to rub it in his tired face that he is ultimately incapable of maintaining a relationship. Maybe he's so incredibly bitter about all this because Harry is so fucking _gorgeous_ , and, not that he'd admit it, but he kind of wishes it was him dancing to ABBA in the god forbidden hours of the weekday mornings, but at two am he gives up trying to sleep and moves into the living room on the other side of the flat, away from the sickening sound of a gooey relationship, and he **hates** Harry.

He's never even seen Harry's boyfriend, at least he's guessing it's a man judging by the sound of the explicitly loud moans mixing together, and the low rumble of voices laughing all the fucking time, but he's known the curly-haired boy for months. Ever since the big removal van had pulled up in front of the apartment building in early January, Louis had been positively infatuated with him, and the first night he heard the couple giggling through the thin wall had been spent on the sofa watching shitty rom-coms while getting through three tubs of ben and jerry's. (The next day he'd called Niall to cover for him at work because he felt so sick, and he convinced himself it was just the ice cream, but he knew that half of the pain he was experiencing was stupid teenage heart break, which was completely and utterly stupid because he was _twenty-five_ for fuck's sake _._ )

"Jesus Christ, lad, you look awful!" And _thank god_ for Niall, because he really can't deal with anything out of the ordinary today.

The laugh that escapes Louis' mouth is only half forced, as he makes his way in for a hug. "Rough night, I guess," Louis replies, and Niall looks at him like he knows, because of course he does. He doesn't comment though, and they walk through to the playroom as they set up for the day.

 

It's on the way home from work that Louis sees his neighbour and a wave of rage kind of sweeps over him, and he can't control the shout that leaves his stupid mouth. "Oi, Harry!"

Harry whirls around, surprise residing on his (beautiful, Louis thinks) features. He looks even more shocked when he figures that it's Louis calling him, which, ok, because they've spoken like twice in the five and a half months (he totally counted) they've known each other. He doesn't even give Harry a chance to talk before he's yelling again. "You and that goddamn partner of yours kept me up all night, do you have to be that fucking rude? I was trying to sleep, goddamn it! Be fucking quieter tonight, or I swear to God-" He leaves the threat unfinished and storms away, not giving a shit about the group of teenagers on the opposite side of the road, all with differing expressions on their ignorant faces, and Louis wonders how his sisters don't hate him yet. 

(Later on he calls Niall for a rant, because he feels sort of bad for yelling at the always-smiley boy earlier on, and he realises he really should stop calling him boy in his head, because Harry was taller than him, and looked too fucking gorgeous all the time to simply be a _boy._ )

But that night ABBA isn't playing, and the giggles are quieter, so subsequently, the guilt ebbs away. Louis goes to work with a full eight and a half hours of sleep.

 

The next few weeks are completely uneventful, except he can fall asleep okay most nights, and when he can't, the next day he catches Harry, has a bit of a yell and then it's all okay again. And Louis still loves his job, because he loves young children, and working in a pre-school was a job he'd wanted ever since he realised that to work as a drama teacher means you have to work with teenagers and Louis can't stand them, probably because his own high-school years were so cringey and he can't bear to see other people's shitty phases. So, it's all good. 

Even Niall notices the change in Louis' general mood and his boyfriend Zayn is all too fucking glad because 'he doesn't want sex when he's stressed, Lou, and you know how he stresses about you goddamn it', and he didn't really want to know, but he was glad that Niall wasn't worried about him anymore. Things are looking good because they've been spending more time together as a three, and sometimes even a four if Zayn's best mate Liam comes as well. (Even greater; Zayn shares his strange love for kinder eggs, and they take it in turns to buy them every time they meet up because it is admittedly embarrassing for a grown-ass man to buy children's chocolate, and even more so when together. Louis feels less stupid around Zayn.)

Things with Harry have been so dramatically different that it takes four days for Louis to realise that he no longer hears anything on the other side of the paper thin wall, and he sits up so quickly that he swears his brain rattles in his head. He also realises that he hasn't seen the curly haired boy on the way home from work either. And what the fuck does he _do_? Half of him hopes to god that he's okay, and the other half is definitely throwing a party right now which makes him imagine an angel and a devil on either shoulder, before he stops himself from making anymore shitty cartoon references in his head. Straining his ears, the angel wins and he longs to hear a quiet conversation or giggle or moan or _something_ , not the eerily silent reality that he's forced to accept.

Louis goes to work with quite a bit under eight and a half hours of sleep.

 

A week of this turns into two, and soon Harry is walking home at the same time as Louis again, but there's no permanent smile on his face, and he doesn't stop to coo at babies or pet dogs, and even worse, there are headphones in his ears every time they see each other. He's no genius, but he thinks they've broken up. Louis tries to not let on to his friends how stressed he really is at all of this, because he loves the boys and hates to see Niall worried, especially about him, but sometimes he gets no sleep because he's so concerned about the boy, _man_ , he's ninety-nine percent sure he's in love with. Harry has royally fucked everything up for Louis, quite frankly.

On September 4th, Louis thinks that this has been going on for too long, and he's not wrong, because Harry is still sad two months after the giggling stopped, and he's confused more than anything. When Louis had his last break up, it was two weeks before he was right as rain again, not two fucking months. Louis guesses Harry and his guy were only together for like three months anyway, and he's pretty sure Harry's sensitive, but not that goddamn sensitive. Louis has no idea what's going on anymore. 

When he climbs into bed that night, a take-away pizza beside him and Netflix on his laptop, and just as he's wondering what to do about the green eyed beauty causing his stupid infatuation, he hears sobs. The kind that feel like your breath has been snatched from your lungs and breathing is near impossible. The kind where your head hurts after only two, and your chest physically aches as its ripped apart every other second. The kind that breaks the heart of anyone there to hear it. It takes Louis thirty seconds to pull on his vans, grab a jacket before he's frantically knocking on the door of Apartment 106.

 

Five minutes later and he's still there, knocking and calling through the door, desperately trying to elicit a response from Harry as he hears the sobs rip more and more violently through him. He's genuinely worried after another two minutes, and there's less time between the sobs of the boy; Louis can hear his struggle for breath. "I'll be right back, Harry," he calls gently, before he's sprinting back to his bedroom and back again, grabbing a paperclip from his drawer. Fifty seconds later the lock is picked, and Louis falls through the doorway into the flat mirrored to his own. 

Harry looks up at him, his eyes pleading as he sobs again violently, and Louis wonders if this is maybe not just a mental breakdown, but a panic attack. He shuts the door again and darts towards the boy pressed against the wall. "Babe," Louis attempts to calm him down, "Is it okay if I touch you?" 

He thinks he sees a nod so he warily reaches out and wraps his arms around the nearly hyperventilating, yet still somehow beautiful boy. "Follow my breathing, okay Harry? Try and breathe with me, love."

It takes half an hour, but Harry calms down. 

 

Two weeks later, they are sat in Harry's bed, and Louis is braiding his hair, and not making fun of him. Harry can't really believe it, because people always found something wrong with him, with how feminine he is, yet how deep his voice is, how he loves to be babied and spooned, yet he's six feet tall. Louis makes him feel pretty and special, and he's never told Harry to get over his emotions, how people's words affect him so much. "I think I love you," he tells the boy behind him, and the fingers in his hair stop moving.

There's a chuckle, and he thinks he's finally fucked it all up, but then Louis speaks in that gentle voice he saves only for Harry, "Baby, I've loved you ever since the fifth of January when that obnoxious van pulled up outside and you stepped out of the passenger seat and tossed these pretty little locks of yours."

And, yeah, Harry thinks, it's going to be okay.

 

It's another week before he tells Louis everything, and it's not expected by either of them. "I don't like myself."

Louis freezes.

Harry thinks he does this when he reveals anything to him. There's no reply so he carries on. "That's why the break-up with Nick was so hard for me, because I hated everything about me so much, and then when he told me he'd found somebody better, it made me think that I was good for nothing, that what my step-dad has told me all my life, that it's all the truth. I don't- I think I'm like the ugly duckling reversed you know? Because when I was younger I was so cute and my dimples were cute because I was a child, but then I grew up but I never really grew different, except my height, so I have all these child-like features, but I'm a man, I'm 22, you know? So I got all these tattoos so I could seem older, but it never works. Everyone's always better-looking than me, hotter, and I kind of just want to be pretty you know? But 'm not, 'm Harry."

"You're the prettiest princess in all the land," Louis says, and holds Harry so tight he feels like a piece of him has fitted into place again after all those years. 

 

They are a power couple. By the time their six month anniversary comes around, their friends can't really imagine LouisandHarry as anything else. Moving into Harry's apartment at the five month marker didn't change much, except the fact that they both had more money now, (although pretty much all of Louis' went to the Spoiling Harry Fund) and how they became the couple that kept their new neighbours up at night. They both laughed about the irony on more than one occasion. 

When Louis found out that Harry worked as a photographer, he honestly couldn't think of a more fitting and sensitive job for his boy, and he thinks he fell in love with him even more that evening. "I want to see some of your pictures," Louis had demanded.

The blush that graces Harry's cheeks makes his tummy flutter. "There's really no point, Lou, 'm not that good." He hates it when Harry puts himself down, because he is just so _perfect_ , and he can't imagine why anyone, _especially the boy himself_ , would think anything different. 

"Hush up, baby, you make a living from these photos, so they're obviously not as bad as you say, aren't they?" So Harry fetches his portfolio and Louis almost cries when he sees a picture of himself, because he knows that this love is far from unrequited. (The photos are so good that Louis wishes they'd been together when his mum got married, because their photographer was really quite shit to be honest, and his mum deserves the world. When Harry hears this, _he_ almost cries.)

 

Relationships are supposed to be valued, in Louis' opinion, and he thinks that's why they haven't gone one step further yet. Their love is so beautiful that they don't want to fill it with anything but it's rightful purity, but come on, they've been together for nearly seven months, and Louis hasn't got laid in like two years. He knows that they are usually in the same boat with how they want to go about the relationship, like when Louis moved in and when they met each other's friends, (not that Harry had many due to the crippling social anxiety Louis learned he'd been suffering from for over six years, but he'd slotted into the group with Niall, Zayn and Liam so well that it didn't really matter) however, Louis wasn't sure how he'd be about sex. He was fairly certain that he was a bottom, because he liked being called Princess and having his hair braided, but Louis' met some bizarre people in his time.

He waits. On their seven month anniversary, Louis wasn't working the afternoon because it was Friday, and the pre-school closes at 12 at the end of the week, which seemed really inconvenient for the parents, but he didn't complain because he could do some work around the house before Harry came home at 4:30 later on. When he heard the door swing open and Harry's sweet-as-honey deep voice ring out, he did a double take at the clock, because it was only 2:13, and in all the time they've been together he doesn't recall him ever leaving work early. 

"You alright baby?" Louis calls, walking to meet him at the door and kisses him gently, "Why are you home so early?"

"Not happy to see me, Lou?" he smiles cheekily, and _god_ , Louis is so gone for this boy.

"Always am, Princess, you know that," he replies softly, "Want anything?"

Harry goes a bit red, and fiddles with the baby hairs around his neck, something he does when he's nervous. "Um, no- not exactly, I just kinda wanted- I don't know," he cuts himself off, and drags Louis by the hand to the sofa.

"What's up, babe? Calm down, it's just me, what do you want?" Louis soothes him, pulling him into his chest and winding the chocolate curls around his fingers. 

"I want you to, erm, can we have sex?" Harry blurts out in the end, and his entire face is flaming red as his boyfriend turns him around in his lap to look at him. It's just as awkward as they both thought it would be. (It's also perfect.)

 

"Louis," Harry says one night as they're laid in bed, watching some shitty movie on his laptop, celebrating their year and a half anniversary in the best way possible way.

"Yeah, baby?"

"My therapist said to me one time, that I can't love anyone until I love myself." The words are quiet, and soft spoken, but Louis pauses the film and rolls over to face his boyfriend.

"Yeah?" It's barely a hum, as if there's this kind of unspoken fear that this could be the end. 

"I think that's bullshit." (Louis breathes a silent sigh of relief.) "Because I have never loved myself," (Louis' breath hitches again) "But you, Lou, oh god, I love you so much, I forget what hating myself feels like."

"I love you, Harry."

"I love you too, Lou, as I said," Harry breathes out softly, tucking his head into Louis' chest, and he looks so _pretty_.

Louis wants to show Harry how beautiful he is every day for the rest of his life, and that's the thought that spins around in his head as they both fall asleep to the sound of each other's heart beats.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, please leave kudos, if you didn't, pretend you never read it :')
> 
> also my tumblr is dizzieribbons if you want to talk about anything or if you just want to be friends


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